Opinion Contributor

Show us ransom note, Mr. President

On Nov. 7, House Speaker John Boehner announced that Republicans in the lower chamber would accept a deal to solve the fiscal cliff that included new revenue, castor oil for conservatives by another name. Four weeks hence, Boehner is still waiting, hand extended, for President Obama to meet him in the middle of the road.

Obama has been unwilling to even hint that he’ll ask the same compromise from his liberal base as he expects Boehner to extract from conservatives. Boehner says his negotiations with the White House are at “stalemate” - an indication the president has no intention of cutting a deal that could win the votes of the conservatives who voters put in charge of the federal purse.

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The president, according to a front-page New York Times piece on Dec. 2 by Peter Baker “is trying to leverage what he claims as an election mandate.” In doing, Obama seems intent on ignoring the other clear election outcome - the fiscal chaperones the voters have shackled to him in two straight elections for the U.S. House.

If Obama won’t accept the mandate that he negotiate a compromise with the voters’ preferred House majority, perhaps Boehner should let him try to negotiate a deal with the House minority. That might be the Republicans’ best gambit on this chessboard.

Why not find out what kind of fiscal cliff legislation Obama could craft that could earn the votes of every single one of the lower chamber’s incoming 201 Democrats? Once the president has 201 votes, he’d need to find just 17 Republicans to go along with him.

During the Bush administration, Democrats forced Republicans to muster party unity on the president’s toughest legislative sells before they gave any real help. Partisan-minded Democrats, like then-Senator Obama, were thus free to cast showy votes against “must-pass” legislation like raising the debt ceiling while a small number of pragmatic Democrats helped Bush keep the government running.

Why should Obama be spared quarter he, himself, would not give George Bush?

The reason Obama has no taste for a Democrats-first solution is that he tried that route before and it yielded the 2010 mid-term election boomerang. Obama negotiated his 2009 stimulus and his health care law with an eye toward uniting congressional Democrats and the result both times were left-wing overreach that the public soundly rejected.

Perhaps Republicans should seek that same exposure again. The Obama who had to outsource his policy to wacky liberals in the Progressive Caucus was an Obama who enraged swing voters. That same Obama is still in the White House as evidenced by his desire for yet another $50 billion in short term stimulus spending in the midst of a conversation ostensibly about spending cuts.

Big O is already in trouble. MSM is rebroadcasting his own rational from July, 2011, stipulating Tax Reform without rasiing Taxes. What a fickle politician? Big O and Axe the Hack have ratted out, smeared and otherwise defamed so many people --- fabrication after fabrication --- reality only exists in the minute. Republicans need to do what is right for the American Taxpayer and Ameican Economy.

Obama is shooting himself in the foot in more ways than one: When he aggravates enough citizens of this country, they'll turn on him and kick his butt all the way back to Chicago. It's only a matter of time. Unfortunately a lot of people are going to hurt or even ruined before that happens.

Ransom note: It was written in January, 2009, when Eric Cantor and other GOP big names vowed to stonewall everything Obama sought in his first term. It was written when Mitch McConnell said in 2010 that his party's primary goal was depriving the President of a second term. It was reinforced and best illustrated when the GOP brought on the downgrade of the US economy's rating with Moody's by refusing to let the President raise the debt limit, which had been a customary action up until the Obama presidency. Now the GOP appears to be under the delusion that it can keep acting in this reckless fashion by protecting the richest at the expense of everyone else, and once again threatening to drive down the economy by holding the familiar ransom note of the debt ceiling. The GOP will continue to pay a very steep price for doing this---possibly the very death of their party, because the American electorate is fed up with this garbage. The voters expect the President to work on infrastructure improvement and job creation and not the austerity menu that the GOP is pushing. That austerity menu is driving European countries back into recession. The GOP tried to push it in the 1930's, and it almost crippled American efforts to get out of the Depression. That menu was something the GOP never tried when Bush was president and driving up the deficit. Note to this writer: Maybe do a little evidence gathering before you write a stupid headline.

Good grief. ANOTHER Delusional republican. Did you think Romney was going to win? The voters did NOT give the GOP the House. Gerrymandering did. The GOP lost the popular vote for the house by half a million votes. The GOP has lost the popular vote for President in 5 of the last 6 elections. So much for a center-right country. Up until now, the debt ceiling was routine business. It is simply saying all the debt run up by the GOP will be honored. As per the 2010 election, well, the voters who missed that election showed up in 2012. And if Obama passes good progressive legislation, they will turn out in 2014. Remember the GOP has screwed itself out of FIVE Senate seats in the last 2 elections, due to how CRAZY some of their candidates are.

As per the liberal base, we got no vote on the Public Option. We got no vote on Medicare for all. We got a mandate on buying insurance, the brainchild the Heritage Foundation, and the GOP position in 1994. The problem is Obama starts in the middle, and negotiates to the right. he won the election. Tax rates need to go UP, and ABOVE the Clinton rate.

John Boehner won't let legislation go to the floor of the house unless a majority of republicans approve it. Try passing the tax cuts for 98 percent of the americans that the senate passed in July.

Taxes will go up on everyone in January and the military is gonna get a nice haircut to the tune of Hal a trillion dollars. Obama needs only watch republicans spout nonsense like Mr. Todd's for the next three weeks.

The Republicans have no mandate, they simply have a forced majority due to Tea Party redistricting in 2011. More Americans voted for Democrats in the House than for Republicans, don't confuse the will of the people with the reflected turn-outs in districts that were specifically designed by the incumbants to favor them for the next ten years, regardless of the actual voter turn-out.

The President and Senate, however, did draw an actual mandates in support of the President's ideas, because their wins weren't determined by self-selected voting districts.

How can they not have a mandate, when he spent months campaigning on the idea of raising taxes and still got elected by a clear majority?

The Republicans have no mandate, they simply have a forced majority due to Tea Party redistricting in 2011. More Americans voted for Democrats in the House than for Republicans, don't confuse the will of the people with the reflected turn-outs in districts that were specifically designed by the incumbants to favor them for the next ten years, regardless of the actual voter turn-out.

The President and Senate, however, did draw an actual mandates in support of the President's ideas, because their wins weren't determined by self-selected voting districts.

How can they not have a mandate, when he spent months campaigning on the idea of raising taxes and still got elected by a clear majority?

In 2005, George Bush emerged from his re-election claiming a mandate for private-sector reform of Social Security

In 2004, George Bush ran very loudly on his war on terror platform. He did not run on a Privatize Social Security platform. Kerry was defeated because he was painted as weak on terror, not because he had bad ideas for social security.

Obama DID run on a raise taxes to balance the budget and fix the economy platform. It was all we heard because the Republicans can't attack Obama's foreign policy anymore. Especially when their leading candidates don't even know all of the member nations of NATO. Romney was clearly defeated based on his economic policies (or lack there-of).

Don't expect this coward to lead. Even the vile Reid wouldn't put his plan to a vote on the floor of the Senate because he knew it would not pass. But then again this is the same dope that promised to reduce the deficit in half by the end of his first term, 6 trillion later.

Here is where you missed the point entirely Brad. There should not be an angle or a point of levereage. There shoiuld onloy be a sloution to our problem which is a REVENUE problem. No gambit, no leverage and no angles just a solution. .

Here is where you missed the point entirely Brad. There should not be an angle or a point of levereage. There shoiuld onloy be a sloution to our problem which is a REVENUE problem. No gambit, no leverage and no angles just a solution. .

Oh MIkey why so angry? You know the funny things is if you ask all the small business owners and they will tell you they had a pretty good year. Why so angry? Because a person of color is president? Or maybe it's because McConnell proposes a vote and then filibusters his own proposal? Can't figure it out as to why so much anger?

Personally, I vote for the cliff. If Republicans, and use that trer very loosely in the contxt of the Congress, are willing to sacrifice their policies, so be it. The President should have stood his ground in December 2010. Had he done so then: 1) Taxes on the top 2% would have gone up in January 2011. 2) It would have been the Republicans' fault that the taxes for everyone else went up. 3) Extreme pressure would have been brought to bear on the Republicans to pass tax relief/reform. 4)There would have been no debt ceiling stand-off. 5) We wouldn't be in the current situation. It is time to stand up to the Republicans and force them to eat a little crow before they have to come to the negotiation table with real legislation that will benefit all Americans, not just the top 2%.

So we are suppose to believe anything a rightwing political adviser writes? If I recall, the right wing advisers were mostly wrong according to the majority in the recent elections. More people voted for democrats than for republicans even in the house. Without some off the chart gerrymandering that in some cases was illegal, Democrats would hold the house as well as the senate and presidency.

Anyone who thinks that Obama will settle for only a 37% top rate is nuts. A compromise would be about 38.5% since Obama wants 39.6 and Boehner can accept 37. Maybe they should just allow top rates to expire, but spread it over 2 years. Don't cut medicare, or medicaid, or social security in any way that decreases furure benefits. Instead, means test all programs and eliminate or raise the limit on the maximum income that is taxed. Raise the taxes by 1% for employers and employees to protect their future benefits. I would rather pay 1% more now than lose benefits when I am unable to take a second job to pay for my rent.

We are better off going over the cliff than allowing the wealthy to continue to reap massive benefits from the country while repubs want to cut benefits for the poor and aged. It is past time that we make real cuts to the military industrial complex.

Sequestration and the cliff will just about solve the debt issue, and put us back to the spending to income ratio we were in before Bush started this mess. Across the board cuts may seem drastic, but anything g too outrageous that results can be fixed later.

At this point, twelve years after the 'job creators' got their huge tax cuts, it is time to turn back some of that money to the gov't, who will spend it here, rebuilding our infrastructure, or as a repub would say, a stimulus. As everyone knows, ever since tax rates started dropping, first with Kennedy, later and greater with Reagan, the state of the country has been in a long slow decline.

Before then, the US could afford massive programs, like the interstates, and the space program, cheap public universities, and good public education. As the tax rates dropped, we have been able to do less as a nation. Wages have stagnated or worse, and the wealth differential between rich and poor has risen. The tea party crowd want to take us back to those days, but of course they don't want to pay for it.

The high tax rates in the past encouraged reinvesting profit back into your business instead of taking the profit out. That reinvestment increased production, lowered costs, increased efficiencies, or simply increased employment. To save a 90% tax rate, you buy new equipment, and your business is now worth more. Instead, we now have the rich extracting the profit, paying the relatively low rates, and building homes with car elevators or buying expensive foreign toys, or homes, which do little to help the overall economy.

We need higher rates. If we can't apply higher taxes to only those that can easily afford it, then let's go sailing over the cliff. We have a choice- either higher rates or more debt for 'our children' as the right always screams, until asked to help pay for some of the debt.